The following relates generally to wireless communication, and more specifically to Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) offloading through Radio Access Network (RAN) rules. Wireless communications systems are widely deployed to provide various types of communication content such as voice, video, packet data, messaging, broadcast, and so on. These systems may be multiple-access systems capable of supporting communication with multiple users by sharing the available system resources (e.g., time, frequency, and power). Examples of such multiple-access systems include code-division multiple access (CDMA) systems, time-division multiple access (TDMA) systems, frequency-division multiple access (FDMA) systems, and orthogonal frequency-division multiple access (OFDMA) systems.
Generally, a wireless multiple-access communications system may include a number of access points, each simultaneously supporting communication for multiple mobile devices or user equipment (UE). Different access points may in some cases be associated with different access networks, including Wireless Wide Area Network (WWAN) access networks or WLANs. When a suitable WLAN is available for a UE, it may be desirable to offload one or more Packet Data Network (PDN) connections of the UE from the WWAN to the WLAN in order to reduce the amount of traffic on the WWAN and/or free up bandwidth for other WWAN users. For example, if a UE is consuming a large amount of WWAN bandwidth (e.g., a user is watching a video), it may be desirable to switch the UE to an available WLAN in order to free up spectrum on the WWAN for other users.
In order for a UE to switch one or more PDN connections between the WWAN and the WLAN, the WWAN and/or the WLAN may need to inform the UE which PDN connections are offloadable, and may also need to provide rules and other information to the UE regarding when PDN connections should be offloaded to the WLAN and when they should be switched back to the WWAN. This information may, however, need to be efficiently provided to the UE in order to reduce the overhead signaling for implementing the switching back and forth of the PDN connections between the WLAN and the WWAN.